


12 Steps/2 Planes/1 Day at a Time

by heyjupiter



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drug Withdrawal, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 06:05:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse spends 45 days coming to terms with who he is and what he's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	12 Steps/2 Planes/1 Day at a Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [falafelfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/falafelfiction/gifts).



> Merry Blue Christmeth to falafelfiction, who requested Jesse in rehab, "angsty stuff please."
> 
> Thanks to alienswamp for the beta read!
> 
> NA's 12 steps taken from [12step.org](http://12step.org/steps/narcotics-anonymous.html).

**1.) We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.**

After Aunt Ginny died, his parents made him go to a grief counselor a few times. It had been almost as big of a waste of time as this rehab looked like it would be. Her name was Nancy and she'd stressed to Jesse that it was important not to use any substances while grieving, because they would only delay "the grieving process." She said the phrase "the grieving process" about 500 times, and she advised Jesse to use exercise and meditation to get through "the grieving process." She told him to take things one day at a time.

Jesse had tried those things, but they honestly didn't work as well at getting him through the day as pot or meth or booze did.

Now, at Serenity, he was just as sad, but all he had to get him through the days was weak-ass coffee, scheduled activity blocks, and clonidine for the anxiety and nausea. (He wasn't bad off enough to get methadone, which he supposed was good.)

They had art supplies, and he tried drawing like he used to, but it just reminded him of Jane. He wished they had woodworking stuff, because he'd kinda liked that in high school, but he guessed he understood why they didn't want to give a bunch of recovering junkies access to power tools. They didn't have video games either, and even their TV time was limited. 

On Jesse's 6th day of sobriety, after he stopped feeling quite so junk-sick all the time, he signed up to spend some time working in the garden. He didn't mind the work itself, but the flowers just made him think of Jane and those flower-vag paintings she liked. 

He spent some time losing at checkers in the game room, and he spent some time trying to read some of the shitty self-help books and well-worn magazines that the bookshelves there were stocked with, but mostly he didn't feel like doing anything. He just tried to find quiet places to sit. He'd claim to be meditating if anyone hassled him.

If anything, though, Jesse was doing the opposite of meditating. Whenever his mind was blank, he thought of Jane, so he tried to think of everything except her. It was kinda like that thing where they tell you not to think of an elephant, and then all you can think of is an elephant?

It sucked.

**2.) We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.**

Jesse didn't sleep very well at Serenity. He wasn't sure if that was due to withdrawal or grief or guilt or maybe just the loud, shivery fits his roommate Roger tended to have at night. Whatever the reason, he was up a lot at night thinking. Thinking about Jane, mostly, but other stuff, too.

It seemed like most of the people here, they did bad stuff because of the drugs they took. But Jesse had used drugs to try to make him stop thinking about the bad stuff he'd already done. He couldn't even really talk about most of it here--he was pretty sure you didn't get attorney-client privilege in rehab. But he knew that he was different from all the other junkies here. He was worse, and he had to accept that.

He had trouble accepting a lot of what Scott, the group leader, said, though. Scott talked about how he had hated himself for a long time after killing his daughter, but how he'd ultimately forgiven himself. He said how people needed to get clean so they could find the happiness they deserved. 

Jesse deserved to hate himself. But he needed to get clean to accept the punishment he deserved. He'd killed Jane, the person he loved most. And before that? How much blood was on his hands? Emilio? Krazy-8? Combo? That methhead who got his head crushed under the ATM? Who else's lives had Jesse ruined?

Jesse didn't deserve the escape of using. He needed to get all the drugs out of his system so he could feel all the pain that the universe owed him.

**3.) We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.**

Of all the memories Jesse had of Jane, the one that hurt the most was their last night together, her last night alive. They'd been so close to getting away from everything, from Mr. White, from Jane's dad, from everything. Jane had said herself that she wanted to get clean, just for herself. They were going to get clean just for themselves. Why hadn't they just done that?

On Jesse's 16th day of sobriety, he blurted out to the group, "I wish I had died instead of her." Then Scott made him say what he meant by that, and Jesse had to talk about how much Jane had to live for, how good her art was, and how her dad actually gave a shit about her. 

Scott was quiet for a long moment and then said, "I understand how you feel, Jesse. If I could trade my life for my daughter's life, I absolutely would. But we don't get to make those kinds of choices. What you _can_ choose is what you do from this day forward. What you can choose is what you do with the rest of your life."

Jesse sighed. "I don't even like deciding what to have for dinner, yo." Some group members giggled, but Jesse hadn't meant it as a joke.

**4.) We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.**

Jesse didn't usually watch the news at home, but it was Jaina's turn to pick the channel, and she said she liked to stay current on world affairs. Jesse just liked watching TV more than any of the other options available, so he'd watch whatever. 

The previous day, they'd watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, and so had apparently missed the initial reports about the Wayfarer 515 crash. Today, on Jesse's 37th day of sobriety, the news was showing a picture of Donald Margolis and talking about his grief, and at first Jesse didn't get it. He thought it was just a coincidence that they were showing Jane's dad as like, an example of how sad people were about the crash that happened. But then he realized it was Jane's dad's _fault_. Which meant it was really Jesse's fault.

Jesse ran out of the TV room and threw up in the nearest bathroom. He spent a long time in there, staring down into the toilet bowl and trying to remember the dumb breathing techniques they did at meditation class. Finally, he washed his hands, splashed some water on his face, and left.

An orderly was waiting outside for him. He smiled at Jesse sympathetically and said, "How are you doing, Jesse? Have your withdrawal symptoms come back?"

"No, I… I was just upset. By the news."

The orderly's eyes widened fractionally and he said, "Ah, of course. I understand. Yes, terrible news." He patted Jesse's shoulder and said, "You let me know, or your group leader, if you think you need to adjust your clonidine dosage."

Jesse nodded. "Yeah, thanks." He knew, though, that clonidine or methadone or even heroin wouldn't make him feel better, not after this. This was the universe's punishment for Jesse.

**5.) We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.**

On Jesse's 39th day of sobriety, he was sitting on a bench by himself, staring out at the desert, when Scott, the group leader, approached him and said, "Jesse, can we talk?"

"I thought that's what we do every day."

Scott smiled. " _I_ talk every day. Other group members talk. We haven't heard a word from you in a long time. I just wanted to check in with you, one-on-one."

Jesse shrugged. "I guess I don't have much to say."

Scott nodded and said, "I noticed you spend a lot of time alone."

"I've been, um, meditating."

"That's good! Is that helpful?"

"Uh, yeah, totally helpful."

"Hmm. You know, Jesse, you can only really get clean if you're honest with yourself. I don't think you're being honest with me, but are you being honest with yourself?"

Jesse stared down at his hands and said nothing.

Scott went on, "I heard from Miguel that you were very upset about the Wayfarer 515 crash a few days ago. Some other group members have been talking about that at meetings, and you haven't said anything. Did you know anyone on board either of the planes?"

Jesse swallowed. "No, not exactly, it's just…" He shook his head and felt his eyes fill with tears. 

Scott reached over and handed Jesse a little packet of Kleenex. Jesse thanked him and wiped his face. 

"I understand, Jesse, it's a real tragedy. I personally think that sharing things with a group can be a very beneficial way of processing your feelings, but if you'd rather talk about something one-on-one, that's fine. I'm here for you."

Jesse sighed. "You know how bad you felt after you killed your daughter?"

Scott took a deep breath and said, "Of course."

"Well, how would you feel if you killed 167 people? Or, um, 168?"

That hung in the air for a long time before Scott said, "Jesse, surely you don't think _you're_ responsible for the crash?"

**6.) We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.**

After Jesse told Scott about Jane and Jane's dad and everything, Jesse had to meet with Dr. Hannigan, in addition to group meetings. Jesse didn't like Dr. Hannigan as much as he liked Scott. She was a shrink, but she didn't really know what Jesse was going through. At least Scott had done something awful too, and that was why he was here. Dr. Hannigan was just here because she'd gone to medical school.

Dr. Hannigan leaned forward and said, "Jesse, let me ask you a question. The night that Jane died, who sold you the heroin?"

Jesse shrugged. "I dunno. Jane got it."

"So why do you feel responsible?"

"Um, because she was clean, until I came along. She showed me her chip, she had 18 months."

Dr. Hannigan nodded and said, "Did you force her to use with you?"

"Well, no, but I mean, I offered it to her. And I did it around her, even after she showed me her chip. It was really shitty of me."

She smiled. "Jesse, you need to learn the difference between doing something 'shitty' and actually being responsible for someone's death." She pronounced the word "shitty" very carefully, like she didn't want any residue of it to get stuck in her mouth.

Dr. Hannigan didn't understand at all. You couldn't tell ahead of time what shitty thing you did might cause someone's death. That didn't mean you weren't responsible. All you could do was not ever do shitty things, which seemed impossible.

**7.) We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.**

By day 40 of sobriety, Jesse felt better physically than he had in awhile. He'd shaken his physical withdrawal symptoms a long time ago--it helped that he hadn't been using nearly as much or as long as some of the other people here. Plus, at Serenity they gave you three meals a day and made sure you ate them. That wasn't something Jesse was very good at, normally. The food there was pretty good, for being organic hippie crap, although Jesse didn't have much of an appetite these days.

He didn't think about using that much anymore, either. From their group meetings, he understood that he would always be considered a "recovering addict," no matter how many days he was sober. That made sense to him in general, but he listened to the way others talked about how badly they missed using, and he just didn't really relate to that. Thinking about using made him sick. (He did crave cigarettes like crazy, but he didn't think that counted. It so totally figured that Mr. White had found him a pussy smoke-free rehab.)

Jesse still lay awake at night and thought about Jane and all the plane crash victims, but he was pretty sure that was what he should be doing.

He told that to Dr. Hannigan and she prescribed him Xanax. Jesse took it for a few days. It made him sleep better, but his dreams were fucked up. He decided that if his nights were going to be spent with memories of his victims, he might as well stay awake for them. 

**8.) We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.**

At Serenity, they got newspapers in the cafeteria every morning. Jesse used to only read the comics, and sometimes the entertainment section, but after the crash, he became obsessed. He read everything he could about the Wayfarer 515 crash. There was no shortage of news. The week after the crash, the Sunday Albuquerque Journal had a pullout with a profile of every victim, and Jesse kept it in his room. 

He knew all about Janine Ho, age 38, who had been on her way to visit her newborn niece. He knew about the Suarez family--mom, dad, and four kids, all gone in one crash. He knew about Marcus Vigeland and Logan Carmichael and Marcia Zeter. He knew about all of them.

He wished Jane were here. Jane had been so good at making him feel better about stuff. He imagined her sitting next to him at group, rolling her eyes at the dumb stuff people said, and somehow looking super hot in the lime green clothes they had to wear.

Of course, that was the stupidest thought Jesse had ever had, and he had had a lot of stupid thoughts. If Jane were here, everything else would be fine.

Jane wasn't here, and so Jesse re-read the list until he had it memorized.

**9.) We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.**

In Jesse's last group session, on his 45th day of sobriety, he said, "Um, excuse me, I know we're supposed to make amends to people we've wronged, but… what if we can't? What if that's impossible?"

Scott nodded. "That's a good question, Jesse. A real difficult question. Does anyone have thoughts they'd like to share about that?"

Roger spoke up and said, "I guess we just have to, you know, pay it forward, maybe? Just… put good stuff out into the universe."

Jesse said, "But how do you know… I mean, what if you think you're doing something good for somebody else, but it actually hurts them?"

"Only God knows that," Jaina said. 

Scott nodded. "God or whatever higher power you happen to believe in. But that's a good point. Jesse, you can't possibly predict every possible outcome of your actions, and you can't be responsible for the actions of others. All you can do is try to live deliberately and thoughtfully."

"You just have to find what you're good at, something that makes you happy and makes other people happy too," Maggie said. "I think that's all you can hope for."

"If it were that easy, would any of us be here in the first place?" Jesse asked. Maggie looked like Jesse had slapped her, and he mumbled, "No offense."

Scott said, "Jesse, I think it's good that you're sharing your feelings so honestly. I know you're about to leave us here at Serenity and return to your regular life. So, listen: no one said this was going to be easy. It's going to be a lot of hard work, every day. That's all any of us can do, is just take things one day at a time and try to do our best to forgive ourselves and not to cause any further harm to anyone, ourselves included."

**10.) We continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.**

Jesse knew he owed Mr. White his life, and he was grateful to him for sending him to rehab, for letting him crash on his couch. He knew there was no one else in his life who would have done that for him.

He knew Mr. White was some kind of genius. But he also knew Mr. White was dead wrong when he told Jesse he wasn't responsible for the Wayfarer 515 crash, "not in any way, shape, or form." He told Jesse a bunch of stuff about how he knew better than Jesse about the crash, typical Mr. White bullshit. Like he was the only one capable of picking up a newspaper.

When Jesse explained his revelation that he was a bad guy, Mr. White stared at him for a long time and then babbled off a whole list of reasons why that wasn't true: Jesse was just a mixed-up kid; Jane was the one who bought the heroin; Jesse never meant to hurt anybody. 

Mr. White was refusing to face the facts, and instead kept trying to convince Jesse that the plane crash wasn't as bad as it sounded.

"Did you know this was only the 50th worst airline disaster in history?" Mr. White said.

"That's still pretty bad."

"Only 167 people died. It could have been much, much worse."

Jesse shook his head. "Yeah, but it would have been better if, y'know, zero people had died."

"Air travel isn't without risk, Jesse."

Eventually, he realized that Mr. White was just trying to make him feel better, which was nice. Jesse decided to just keep quiet and let Mr. White lie to him. 

It didn't matter if he couldn't get Mr. White to understand what Jesse was. Jesse accepted the truth.

**11.) We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.**

When Jesse had first started cooking with Mr. White, he couldn't imagine why the old dude would want to cook crystal if he wasn't even going to use it. It was like being a vegetarian chef at a steakhouse, or something. 

But now Jesse got it. He liked the process of cooking. He knew the steps by heart, and the simple, deliberate acts of measuring, heating, titrating, stirring, and everything else kept his hands and mind occupied. The quiet of being alone in the RV, out in the desert, reminded him of Serenity.

It turned out that cooking meth was a form of active meditation, just like they'd taught him in rehab.

**12.) Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.**

When Jesse saw how good his product had turned out, he had to admit, he was tempted to try it. Just once, just to see if it was as good as it looked. To see if the stuff he made by himself would have the same insane effects as what he made with Mr. White.

But Jesse knew he didn't deserve the release of meth, or anything else. He meant it when he said he was done using. 

He just needed to accept what he was good at. Even when Mr. White was trying to help him, he couldn't even name a single other thing Jesse was good at. There was just cooking crystal. That was Jesse's role in the universe.

No matter what Mr. White said, Badger and Skinny Pete and everybody else agreed Jesse's meth was the bomb. Anyway, if methheads were gonna use, they might as well have a good product. Maybe that was supposed to be Jesse's way of putting something good back into the universe.

And if Jesse ended up in jail or worse, well, he would accept whatever punishment the universe gave him. Until then, he'd just keep taking things one day at a time.


End file.
